Tire to Stools!

My children's school wanted outdoor stools and asked me if I could make them some. They wanted something like my ottomans but smaller.

Enter Trishaw tires! In Asian countries Trishaw or Three Wheelers are commonly used for transport. We have loads of Trishaws and hence loads of waste tires! Luckily for me there was a tire shop near my mom's and they happily gave me 24 tires FREE!

Now I had to make 6 stools for school and I wanted to make another 2 for me. I seriously couldn't see myself drilling and joining all these tires! My arms would kill me!! So I looked for other options and came across 2 part epoxy glue which also glues rubber. Yipppeee! saved :-D

3 tires per stool

2 part epoxy - I used EPI FIX. I'm sure you could find other options for this in your country.

2" sponge foam

9mm plywood for lid - You could also use the lid of 5L paint buckets. ( I couldn't find any at hand else I would have used it

Leather/ synthetic leather

Heavy duty Stapler Gun

First you need to give your tires a good wash to remove all the grease and grime.

Now mix your two part glue and apply on the highest point where the tires would meet and stack the other tire. Glue and stack till you get your required height. 3 was just right for me.

Wait for 24-48 hrs. My children put the glued up tires to some tests and it passed :-)

Measure the height of the tire and take 6" extra. Measure the diameter of the tire and take about 1" extra for sewing allowance. Cut the rectangle.

Cut a smaller circle than the diameter of the tire for the bottom cover.

Wrap the rectangle fabric with wrong side facing up. Pin it to form a tube. make sure it's a tight fit. Now slowly remove the tube and sew it. Fold the tube width wise twice and make a mark so that it's divided in to 4 equal parts and the corners will be marked.

Now fold the circle in 4 and cut a bit or make a mark so that you would also divide the circle in 4 parts.

Pin a mark from the circle to the tube. Do it to all 4. Now evenly distribute the fabric and pin. Sew and attach the circle to the tube.

Turn inside out and wriggle it over the tires. Now pull the tube tight and turn so that the opening is at top. Pull tight and stapler a flap down. Now do the same to the opposite side. Do the same to the side marked B. Keep pulling and stapling till it is all done.

We now have to do the lids

For the lid I cut 9mm plywood.

Measure the diameter of the tire and reduce about 1.5" from it and cut in plywood.

I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of the wood separately. I forgot!

Now place your sponge on top and cut around about 1" larger. (In my picture it's not 1" cause I had to be a scrooge as I ran out of sponge :-( ).

Glue the sponge to the wood. Now place this on your fabric and cut again 1" larger than than the sponge.

Now start to staple as you did the stool base. First one side, then opposite and so on.

Now apply glue on both the bottom of the lid and also the highest point on the stool base. Place lid on top and keep a weight on top so that it would firmly glue down. Leave for 24 hrs!

These tires are not the real hard ones that I used on my ottomans. They are a bit spongy which is also how poofs normally are :-).

I have demonstrated in a picture how much it depresses when a adult sits on it. In this case the adult is 70kg.

The above stool can easily be modified to allow storage.

1. Place the wooden disk on tire and drill through. Mark the respective holes on the tire to match the lid so that if there is a mistake in alignment we would not have a problem later in finding the correct holes. Now remove the lid and drill with a bigger bit on the tire. Why do we do this? be cause the rubber will contract and the hole will be too small for the bold to go through. Gradually drill with larger bits till the bold will go through. It should be snug. Not too big that the bolt just slips through. If that happens the lid might just fall off when kids roll the stool (which they are bound to do!)

2. Place glue on the lid side of the bolt and tighten the nut. Now glue on the sponge and cut your fabric. The sponge should be larger than the lid and the fabric should be larger than the sponge.

Now stapler around like shown in the previous steps.

3.Sew the cover the same way as shown in step 3. Now Pull the cover over the tires. Remember now that the drilled tires should come in the opening side.

Pull your fabric over and punch the hole through the fabric in to the tire. I used eyelet rings to make it neater but it's not necessary. Now place a bolt the same size in the hole and pull fabric and stapler in the under side of the tire. This way it is very neat when you open the lid.

That is it. The space in this is very small as the tires are small. Of course the bigger the tire the larger the storage space!

These look wonderful outside and as it's done with synthetic leather it's also waterproof!

I hope you enjoy this instructable and please ...pretty please vote for me!! You would get a nice warm feeling inside for making someone happy! lol